His story began with the United States going to the moon the first time in Apollo 8 in December 1968.

"President John Kennedy had charged us to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely before the decade was up," said Marlowe Cassetti, a retired aeronautical research engineer, who was the guest speaker at Thursday's Fremont County Engineering Foundation banquet.

Several students from Cañon City and Florence high schools attended the banquet at Merlino's Belvedere to listen to Cassetti, who worked for National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the time. Cassetti, who helped to put the first U.S. astronauts into space and on the moon, shared on Thursday his vast NASA experience on Mercury, Gemini, Skylab and the Shuttle.

"(Apollo 8) was loaded with three astronauts," he said. "We were on our way to the moon."

If the mission could have been filmed, the audience would have seen the rocket going in a big figure 8 around the moon.

"We were following something called a free return trajectory," Cassetti said. "If we had it perfectly targeted, we would do that without spending any fuel, but that wasn't the case. We discovered after we were on the way to the moon, that there was a mysterious force pushing us off course."

Not believing it was anything other than the equipment, he and others looked for evidence then solved the problem from a scientifically engineering aspect.

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"The NASA space program has inspired an entire generation of young people into pursuing a career of engineering and technology," Cassetti said. "I can't count how many people in my years have come up to me and said, 'you worked on the Mercury program where you put the Mercury 7 up in orbit?' I said, 'yes.'"

Cassetti is the recipient of numerous government and industry awards, including NASA's Outstanding Award that included the American flag that was carried to the moon on Apollo 17, and the National Defense Association's Distinguished Service Recognition Metal.

His interest in working in the field began when he was a teenager while reading "Air Trails" Magazine, which had an article in it about a government agency called National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics program, which later became NASA.

"It turned out to be the premier aeronautical research organization in the world," Cassetti said. "Today, you go out to the airport or anywhere in the aviation world, you'll see NACA (equipment in many places)."

But what caught his eye was what they did.

"It told about these engineers and these people taking models of full scale airplanes, running them in wind tunnels or shooting them off of catapults or whatever to measure the properties of these airplanes," Cassetti said. "I thought that's really interesting. The thing that overwhelmed at the time as a 13 year old was they actually pay people to do this."

At that moment he was hooked. When he graduated from high school, he pursued a career in aeronautical engineering, which he did until he retired. Cassetti and his wife, Christiane, live in Florence and are active in several community organizations.

He encouraged the juniors and seniors from Cañon City and Florence high schools to explore the world of engineering.

As part of the banquet, Dale Boody, one of the three who founded the FCESF, explained the purpose of the organization.

It started when they noticed some high school seniors got many scholarships while others had none. So they threw out the idea of starting a scholarship foundation to help engineering students. The group became a 501c3 then after a couple years, they gave a scholarship every year. As the group grew to about 15, someone suggested an Engineer's Week party at the home of Ferd and Jean Muller. From there, the idea grew up until they invited guest speakers.

"So what is the purpose of our group," Boody asked. "It's to create an opportunity for young people to find out what a career is all about, to try to preserve humanity before you're too old to learn the math, the physics and science. In 20 years, they're going to have to be the leaders."

Larry Harkins, who emceed the event, said the group calculated they had helped 23 students, of which 18 graduated.

"Right now, we have seven students in college that we're supporting," he said. "From this group, there will be several more. I look forward to that."

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